Tag: rural

I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple days and just haven’t got around to it…

As my last post was about harvest- what better thing to follow up than with an “in the field meal” recipe? If your crew is anything like mine- handheld, easy to eat while still being able to drive equipment- and NOT a plain old ham and cheese sandwich is ideal. (tall order, huh?) I’ve had to get kind of creative with some of the meals I take.

This Pizza Pocket was the perfect handheld! They took around an hour and a half to prepare start-finish (that includes time for dough to rise)

I use the same bread dough recipe that is used in my strawberry sweetrolls (Stick around and you will see I use this recipe for basically everything.) but I’ll go ahead and give it again.

Bread Dough:

ingredients:

2 tbsp active yeast

2 cups warm milk

2 large eggs + white of one more egg (if you’re using farm fresh that are much smaller go ahead and use the entire third egg)

put mozzarella cheese (however little or much you like, my bunch likes their cheese) and the meat sauce mixture (I used an ice cream scoop as my measurement) onto one end of the dough, leaving enough space to fold it over and close up. seal edges and use a fork to press (mainly it’s just pretty, not necessary)

Bake for about 10 minutes or until light golden browned. brush the tops with garlic butter and serve. (Or wrap in foil and take to the field)

…and I forgot to take a picture of the cooked product. I’m blaming pregnancy brain.

This first 5 months of 2017 has taken its toll on the 5-State area surrounding the Oklahoma Panhandle. With a devastating ice storm hitting right in the thick of calving season. “Dark Monday” and it’s 1 million (+ or -) acres burned across the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, Southwestern Kansas, and Eastern New Mexico and Colorado- which destroyed thousands of acres of grazing lands, scorched hundreds of miles of fence, multiple homes, stole 6 human’s lives and burned thousands of head of cattle and wildlife alive. A crippling April 30th blizzard which left hundreds more cattle dead in Eastern Colorado, Western Kansas and the Oklahoma Panhandle. The most recent a hail storm which carried with it baseball-softball sized hail that tore through the Oklahoma Panhandle and Northwestern Oklahoma killing calves, destroying crops which were only a few weeks shy of being harvested, as well as countless homes, vehicles, and other buildings.

But you won’t hear much about this on the news.

The recovery process is still taking place- and will continue to take place for months. Our hearts are so full for the help and love we have received from so many agriculturist across the nation. But I would be lying if I said that each day isn’t still a challenge to keep our heads up. It’s hard to watch your life’s work go up in smoke-literally. Or watch the wheat that you have tended to and prayed would come out of damages caused by ice and and snow coupled with 60 mph winds survive just to be pounded into the ground by hail just before harvest. It’s so hard not knowing how you are going to make the equipment payment. It’s hard to have to walk through your pastures and see and even have to put down suffering animals who couldn’t escape the flames, or to pull up to your pasture ground to find your cows and calves had looked for shelter in a draw which is now covered in snow- and those mamas and babies have all suffocated- or the babies who couldn’t weather the baseball sized hail who had been literally beat to death in the night. It’s hard. It’s heartbreaking- loss of profits aside.

So today, while you go about your life- while you go to your 8-5 job with a guaranteed paycheck and little risk to your livelihood, when you go to the grocery store and notice the price of food slightly higher, remember, the places where your food comes from has been ravaged this past year. There will be a shortage- not in the “oh my gosh we can’t feed everyone and we have to ration” sense, but as compared to years past. The ranchers and farmers will struggle harder than usual to make their payments this year.

We are strong, we will rebuild, we will continue to raise our cattle, we will continue to plant our crops. We will wake up every day and continue to go to work- just like you. But our hearts and our land will take some time to heal. Remember us in your day to day activities too.

Okay, ya’ll, I apologize for the lack of photos- I just couldn’t with this one.

Chicken and broccoli spaghetti squash.

SO… Here goes. Yesterday evening I decided to try out a new recipe I found on Pinterest a couple weeks ago-Chicken and Broccoli with spaghetti squash (instead of rice.) I have been so excited to try this out, so, so excited. That excitement slowly died through the evening as I was preparing my meal. To be clear, I rarely follow recipes just exactly to the tee- as such was the case on this fateful evening. (don’t judge-usually it works for me.)

I have had spaghetti squash in the past and remembered really liking it, and I love chicken and broccoli- so what could possibly go wrong? A lot, that’s what.

To begin with- I cut my squash in half longways- just like the instructions said. I scraped out the seeds and rubbed the inside with olive oil, salt and pepper (I also added a bit of garlic) placed the halves face down on a baking sheet and set the timer for 45 minutes- as the instructions read. about 15 minutes in I started to smell an odd scent- I thought “surely it will get better as this cooks” and continued on to prepare my chicken and broccoli- as I always do- and just the way I like it. As the squash is roasting, the smell keeps getting stronger and stronger. I kept hoping it was just my nose having been stuffed up for days due to allergies that my sense of smell was off.

I pulled the squash out of the oven and let it cool enough that I could handle it then scraped the meat of it out (hey, that was sort of a fun little task) mixed the chicken, broccoli, and squash into a baking dish along with cheese, cream cheese, and heavy cream and put in oven just long enough to melt the cheese.

By this time the smell was that of dirty feet- but I thought to myself “it can’t be that bad” and “you have spent a little over an hour preparing this food, you are going to eat it, and you are going to like it!” so, I persevered. I fixed a bowl of this concoction for myself, my son, and my husband. I got my son and myself situated at the table and watched as Gage delved into this like it was the most delicious thing he has ever had in his life and thought “dang, it must be pretty good- I’ve barely got our drinks to the table and he’s finished half of what I gave him” so I get myself a generous bite on my fork and take the bite. WORST. TASTE. EVER. Ya’ll, I’m not a picky eater, I never have been, but this? This monstrosity of a supper? I couldn’t handle. Before my husband even got the chance to take a bite I took his bowl along with mine and dumped it back into the dish which I then carried out to the dogs.

Guys, the dogs wouldn’t even eat it. When I went to work this morning, there lay an untouched pile of spaghetti squash nastiness by the corner of the house- and my dogs eat dead rats and donkey poop and lord knows what else. I don’t know how my son seemed to enjoy it so much, I really think he was just that hungry from his long day of play. Has to be.

So, moral of the story I guess- when you’re making chicken and broccoli casserole- just stick to rice as your filler. Spaghetti squash is not “where it’s at.”

This morning as I was getting ready for work, my husband says to me “I’m probably going to be late tonight… and tomorrow night… probably the next night too.” I knew it was coming. It’s “that time of year.” But it never fails- I always get just a slight sense of disappointment- and annoyance.

I know- and knew coming in to this marriage that there would be a lot of late nights and early mornings. A lot of times he would go to work before I was out of bed for the day and wouldn’t be home until long after I had gone to sleep. Deep down I know that’s just part of it- part of this glorious life we live as farmer’s and rancher’s wives. It’s hard sometimes.

As a farmer’s wife with a town job, it’s easy for me to forget just how hard my husband works to make everything work. It’s almost a knee-jerk reaction to feel like I’m doing more or that my workload is somehow unfair. It’s not. When I’m running late in the morning because I had to get myself and my child clothed and fed and out the door by 7:30 (that rarely happens) to be to work by 8 it’s so easy for me to complain in my head about how if someone would just help like put clothes on the tiny human or something, how I wouldn’t be running this late. Or when I get home from work and there are piles of laundry to be done, a floor that needs swept, mopped, or vacuumed, supper to be cooked, dishes to be cleaned, trash that needs taken out, pets that need fed, a kid that needs bathed, teeth brushed, and put to bed. And not always willingly- do any one year olds actually purposefully fall asleep? And a million other things that really need to be done- my “poor me” attitude always shows itself. When I fall into bed and shoot him a quick goodnight text and he doesn’t respond before I am ready to go to sleep, it’s so easy for me to take on my bratty self and think to myself “well if I’m not important enough…”

It’s easy for me to forget he’s busy too. While there are days he spends the morning getting the coffee shop gossip- he makes up for it with the days he’s out on the sprayer long before dawn or on the tractor long after sunset. He spends days running here, there, and everywhere because- let’s be honest- if ever a day comes that everything goes exactly as planned on the farm…what witchcraft are you doing, and can you share? He’s planting, or spraying, or checking fields, or working on equipment, or making sales calls, or delivering product, or hauling water, or tending to cattle, or building fence, the list could go forever. It’s easy to picture a farmer as some old guy who just sits on the tractor all day going back and forth, back and forth across the fields or just sitting in their pickup gawking at their cow. It’s easy to forget that as much as farming is something they (usually) enjoy, it’s also their job.

“Agriculture is the most healthful, most useful, and most noble employment of man”

-George Washington

So, while I may slip from time to time more often than I’d like to admit I’m doing my best to remember- and be grateful for just how hard my farmer works

Since the moment I found out I was pregnant I have realized how fierce and downright hateful mothers can be to each other based solely the differences in decisions and lifestyles chosen. By differences, I don’t mean neglectful- I mean the decisions each mother is faced with from the point of conception. To have an all natural birth or to be medicated, between vaccinating or not, breastfeeding or formula feeding, to be a working mom or a stay at home mom, – the decisions that each of us has a fundamental and almost moral feeling either for or against, the decisions that divide us.

Personally, I was induced and had an epidural, my little Gage has been in daycare since he was 2 months old, has been (and will continue to be) vaccinated on the CDC’s recommended schedule, and was formula fed. I personally know people who have done everything from the get go exactly the opposite of me- natural births, no vaccines, breastfed, and have never spent a minute in a full time child care facility. I know others who are somewhere in between those two extremes. Our children are all beautiful, wonderfully smart little beings who are developing right on schedule.

The point is, While I may adamantly disagree with people who do not vaccinate their babies, others will adamantly disagree with my choice to formula feed or send my child to daycare from the get go- and we each will defend our decisions with passion. We each made every decision (I assume) based on hours upon hours of on our own research- be it by parenting books, Pinterest or internet searches, etc. – advice from families and friends, questions to our doctors or midwives, financial reasons, or based off of personal experiences. We toiled for months on how we were going to make every aspect of our baby’s life the healthiest and safest we possibly could. And when it comes right down to it, each of us made the decisions we felt in our heart was the absolute best for our child as well as our family.

By all means, advocate for what you believe to be true and right, share the information you have and the experiences you’ve had. Just do so with the understanding that we’re all doing our best- we’re all in this together. As long as your child is well fed, appropriately clothed, and most importantly well loved- everything else can be worried about later. We are raising our future together. Lift each other up, love each other, encourage each other, support each other even when you disagree.

I had a lot of things that came to mind to write about today, but I decided to stick to my original plan and talk about the weather. I was just a little too stirred up to be able to write my feelings on the other subjects that came up today in a tactful way. You’ll hear about those soon enough though, don’t you worry!

I thought in order for me to really be able to share my life, you would have to understand weather patterns (or lack there of) in the Panhandle. So, if you’ve made it far enough to read this part, thank you! I will do my best to make it worth your time!

The picture above is from a little over a month ago. We were headed towards a drought so bad we weren’t sure if we were going to even have wheat to cut or enough grass to graze our cattle. On March 3 the winds came a howling- with approximately 40 mph sustained winds and well over 50 mph gusts that day. we watched as dust turned the sky brown. and listened intently as wildfires ravaged a 4-state area burning just over 1 million acres in total. I could write a whole blog on just these fires, but I will leave that for another day. Now back to the sky being brown with dirt. That happens often here, in fact, a day that the winds are less than 25 mph is generally considered fairly “calm.”

You see, people in my little region are praying people. Even if we don’t attend a church service every Sunday or even really know if we believe- everyone seems to pray. After those fires, everyone prayed- not only for comfort and healing for the families, but for rain. We pray for rain out here almost every mealtime and bedtime prayer anyways, but after those fires- we prayed hard, even those who don’t pray often- and, I truly believe God heard. In the past 2 weeks we have received nice, soaking, slow rains a couple times a week. So far my house has received just over 4 inches of much needed rain. Our Wheat is finally popping up from the dirt, our pastures are finally starting to get a little hint of green to them. The spirits of everyone, not just the farm and ranch families are much more jolly- but we all know and understand, that we are just one windy day, one month of little to no moisture from being back in the same boat we were a few weeks ago. It’s our life- and strangely enough, I’ve grown to love it.

Now to the fun part. While a month ago we were fighting a losing battle against the elements, 90 degree weather, 40 mph wind, blowing dirt, and terrible fires- and now we’ve been blessed with rain and snow… yes, you read that right. Snow. I know it’s not uncommon for it to snow in April, but where you live is it ever 84 degrees on Monday, snow an inch and a half on Tuesday, be warm enough in the night that all the snow melts before 7:00 am Wednesday morning and be back to almost 70 degrees by Thursday? Well here things like that happen almost all the time. Living in the Oklahoma Panhandle is kind of similar to living with a pregnant lady (or at least me as a pregnant lady). One second she’s happy and farting rainbows and when she sings the little forest animals gather around and all is perfect- the next second she’s literally the Devil’s wife out to destroy you, your dog, and steal the leftovers you were saving for yourself (If you don’t think that is the work of Satan, I don’t know if you should be on this blog), then the next second she’s crying happy, beautiful gentle tears. Living in the Panhandle is an adventure- because each day you have no idea what you’re going to wake up to (and don’t even rely on the meteorologists- they’re as bad at guessing the weather as the rest of us, they just get to do it on regional TV.) Pictured below are photos of our Tuesday snow and screenshot of today’s temperature.

I thought my first blog would just be a little “get to know me,” a little look into my life.

I am a full time “Jack of all Trades.” I am a housemaid, changer of diapers and official boo-boo kisser, an amateur chef, and a master of sarcasm. I’m also an employee at a local Extension Office, a 4-H volunteer, and a lover of animals, and a proud inhabitant of the Oklahoma Panhandle. I have a passion for agriculture and educating others about the industry that sustains not only my livelihood, but also the lives of the entire world. I grew up loving all things princess- aspiring to be a princess, (what little girl hasn’t at some point in her life) hence the name of my blog.

My fairytale begins long before this point, but for the sake of time (and honestly, this isn’t an obituary) we will start where I met my “Prince” so to speak. (We never speak to each other that way- I almost cringe calling him that.) I met my husband, Nick as a freshman in college. He would tell you that I was a hard one to catch; but I would counter that there was an equal amount of cat and mouse games for both parties there for a while. Eventually fate would take its course and I would become the wife of a farmer on August 3, 2013. Before you get any ideas, I am not a city to country transplant. While my family did not farm, we were what I would consider a rural family. The town I grew up had around 300 inhabitants, with the only businesses being a gas station, a co-op, and a CPA Office. I grew up in FFA and the “Friday night lights” of the school’s basketball gym. I showed sheep, was active in all of my school’s extracurricular activities at one point or another (what few they had), and took great pride in being a “country kid” like small town kids generally do. I had a rather basic understanding of farming and what it took for those guys to make a living, but being married into a true “farming family”has opened my eyes to so many realities today’s farm and ranch families are facing that many people not directly involved in the industry will never fully know. This blog will give you a first hand account of our daily lives. Struggles, successes, and everything in between. Stay tuned!

Aside from being married to my farmer, we introduced our sweet, ornery boy in the world on October 2nd, 2015, (14 days past his due date, I might add.) He was late arriving, and I have been late to literally everything since. Gage is the light to our lives, and already growing to love the “tombine,” ‘tratee,” “doney,” “tows,” “seeps,” and “boppies” (combine, tractor, donkey, cows, sheep, and puppies). Mama and Daddy couldn’t be more proud.

As a college student I worked as a scale operator, grain inspector (It’s really not as cool as it sounds), paper filer, basement cleaner, and “anything else that needs done person” at a local coop. While that was not my first job, that was the first job that I can say I really started to get a real glance into everything it takes to make a farm work. I watched farmers stand there in awe and frustration as they found out fertilizer or chemical prices had risen so high or as they watched the grain markets plummet. I took phone calls from landowners in California wanting to sell their grain- to find out they had about half as much to sell as they did last year due to crippling drought. I even watched as some farmers had to sell out. The cost of production was just far more than what they were making at the end. It was the first job I had that gave me an education to go along with the education I was paying for. Although it wasn’t always rainbows, and I wasn’t always a fan of all my co-workers, I built some great bonds with some great people, and learned so, so much.

From there I took a job with a local extension office. Working with an office of only women was a little intimidating to me at first, I know how women can be, ya know. But this job has been a whole new education. I am the secretary- by no means a specialist or an agent, but I love my job. In the past two years I’ve learned even more about agriculture research, everything extension has to offer, as well as 4-H- which I have developed an even deeper passion for than I had before- who knew that could happen?! Hopefully through some of my posts, you will get an idea of just how great Extension and 4-H truly are.

My blog will be a direct view through my eyes of life in the ‘handle. Some days will be just a run-down of our day-good or bad, sometimes it’ll be a recipe, other days it will be an opinion or something I feel strongly about. This blog will be a way for you to get to know me- and to live my “Rural Life Fairytale” right along with me.